By Johann Leal

Faculty Mentor: Parrish Waters

Abstract

The impact of voluntary wheel running on TH expression in the VTA

The goal of this study was to investigate how exercise impacts dopamine levels in mice.
16 mice were split into wheel running and control groups. Wheel running mice had access to a wheel for 4 weeks and then euthanized. After extraction of the brain, it was sliced by cryostat and VTAs were collected by micropunch. The tissue was pulverized and RNA was extracted. Upon measurement of RNA through Microdrop, it was determined that the values were too low to perform qPCR for TH expression. This was likely due to insufficient amounts of tissue available, and is best explained by the small size of the VTA. The expected result was to see a positive correlation between wheel running and TH expression, therefore implying increased basal DA levels in the VTA. Future experiments would feature use of a larger model organism or grouping of mice as opposed to considering individuals in measurement.